


Nothing Much At Stake

by Daisiestdaisy (Doyle)



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Ambiguously Unrequited Love, Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, You Are Not Safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Daisiestdaisy
Summary: Tomorrow morning, he’s going to put him on a bus to God-knows-where, and then he’s going to have to deflect a hell of a lot of questions, from the FBI, from Gordon. And Ryan’s going to be alone again. Give both of them this moment.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the mini-genre of Having a Lot of Feelings About Ryan Ray. I'm at daisiestdaisy.tumblr.com if you'd like to talk to me about these two.

Ryan let himself in. He’s had his own key since that first week of planning together, when they filled a whiteboard with blue-sky plans that Joe wiped away to let them remember what was important. Near the end he just didn’t go home any more. No point, when the all-nighters were every night; no time, when they were pulling eighteen, nineteen, twenty-hour days, living and eating and breathing NSFnet.

Sometimes Joe would realize Ryan had slumped asleep on the couch or over his keyboard only when it was suddenly quiet, the stream of words or the click-click-click of computer keys cut short. Just before everything went to hell they’d found their way into a rhythm, an unspoken synchronicity that meant there were mornings when Joe headed to the bay at dawn on three hours’ sleep, needing cold air and colder water, and Ryan would stumble past him to collapse face-down and fully clothed on the bed he’d just left.

Right now, Ryan looks like he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks. And he’s just standing there, silent.

Joe keeps talking while he grabs a pile of sheets and a blanket from the bathroom closet, some inconsequential monologue about owing Cameron a favor for finding him, that if he ever held WestNet against her, they’re more than even now. Nothing about Gordon or the work they’ve been doing. Nothing that might make Ryan feel, any more than he already does, as if he’s being pushed out. That hopeless misery on his face a moment ago when Joe wouldn’t lie to him, couldn’t tell him they’d work together once he’d served his time; Joe’s afraid if he says anything to make that worse that he’ll walk back out there to an empty apartment.

It’s a relief to find Ryan exactly where he left him, hands balled into fists at his sides, standing uncertainly in the horseshoe of couches.

Ryan is reckless. Ryan is an unknown quantity. Ryan did a brash, dangerous thing that might still blow up everything they built together.

But Ryan stayed with him all day and all night on the Fourth of July, talking and talking to fill up that terrifying silence while Joe waited for the phone to ring. Ryan is frowning at the bundle in Joe’s arms, and if there was any thought at the back of Joe’s mind of talking him around to turning himself in, it’s swallowed up in the surge of affection at a hundred memories of this kid peering at lines of code on a screen, that exact look on his face.

There aren’t really two choices here. Ryan’s going to run. Better for him, maybe a lot worse for Joe. That’s okay. But he can damn well run tomorrow, in daylight, with fifty grand in his pocket and eight hours of sleep behind him and some semblance of a plan.

“I’ve never heard you be so quiet before,” he says, mostly in the hope that Ryan will roll his eyes and grumble that you don’t _hear_ someone be quiet, _that doesn’t even make sense, Joe._

All Ryan says instead is, “Sorry.” His voice is hoarse. Joe wonders how long it’s been since he’s really talked to someone, and whether he’s apologizing for being quiet, or for talking too much before, or for the trouble he’s brought down on them both.

“It’s all right,” he says, for all of it – and then, firmer, because tears are welling up in Ryan’s dark, exhausted eyes – “Ryan, it’s all right.” They’re not far apart. He drops the sheets on the coffee table, and one more step puts him close enough to grasp Ryan’s shoulders, and when that isn’t enough he moves closer still, wraps his arms around him. Ryan feels insubstantial against him, beyond just the weight he’s lost in the last four months. It’s like holding someone who’s not really there.

“I did it for you,” he says into Joe’s shoulder, indistinct.

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.”

“Shh. I don’t.”

“Don’t lie to me, please, I can’t...”

“I’m not,” Joe tells him. “I haven’t,” and Ryan finally lifts up his arms to shakily hug him back.

He looks calmer when Joe disentangles. He doesn’t take his eyes from Joe’s, and Joe lets himself smile down at him. Tomorrow morning, he’s going to put him on a bus to God-knows-where, and then he’s going to have to deflect a hell of a lot of questions, from the FBI, from Gordon. And Ryan’s going to be alone again. Give both of them this moment.

And then Ryan says, “I love you.”

Joe knows this, with absolute certainty, from the way he says it: that he means it, with everything in him; that he’s not realizing this just now, in this moment, that this has been weighing on him for weeks, months; that he’s never said those words to anyone before.

Gordon asked him about this, or tied himself in knots trying to ask without asking, and Joe said _actually, he reminds me of you_ – truthfully, because yes, he sees Gordon in Ryan, all that directionless brilliance. But Cameron’s there too, her passion, her vision, her righteous anger. Sara, early on, her faith, her ability to see the best of him. And Simon, who changed him so completely that he doesn’t remember who he was before that first glimpse of him on a conference stage; Simon, who wanted words from him he couldn’t say.

Ryan says, “Did you even hear me? I... I don’t know if I said that out loud, or...”

“I heard you,” Joe says. “Thank you. I don’t deserve it.”

It’s not the answer he wanted, Joe knows, and not the one he deserves, but he can’t explain, doesn’t know how to say _the way you look at me, you make me think of every other person who’s loved me and been let down by me._

It’s not something he’s ever done, but he leans down to press a kiss to Ryan’s forehead, holding him close for just a moment before he lets him go. It’s like kissing a statue. All the hope, all the fear, every expression on Ryan’s face has drained away, leaving only a frightening blankness.

“You’re exhausted,” Joe says. “We can talk about this in the morning. Do you want me to help you make up the couch?”

Ryan shakes his head, once, but doesn’t answer.

Joe’s undressing for bed when some impulse makes him cross to his bedroom door. The lights are out in the living room but Ryan’s still up, a silhouette at the balcony window, looking out at the skyline. Maybe he missed it. It reminds Joe of the Fourth of July, of Yerba Buena and the city of reinvention, and he almost says that to Ryan.

But it’s late, and maybe he’ll be able to sleep tonight, with Ryan safe in the next room, so he closes the door without speaking. It’s important. He’ll remember it tomorrow.

 


End file.
